A grand alliance needs more work
Mamata Banerjee must sort out a number of contradictions
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has been at the heart of political action in Delhi this week. She has met a range of opposition leaders. The discussions have had a common thread: forging a common understanding against the BJP for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. With the Samajwadi
Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party coming together in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP faced a severe setback in the bypolls; the Rashtriya Janata Dal, with Congress support, did well in the Bihar bypolls. The Congress has declared that it is open to “pragmatic alliances” at its plenary. This is the backdrop in which Ms Banerjee has stepped up her efforts. West Bengal sends 42 MPs to the Lok Sabha and she is set to win a majority of them in 2019. Unlike the Congress, in a straight contest with some regional parties in specific states — whether it is the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in Andhra Pradesh or the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) in Telangana or the AAP in Delhi — she can talk to everyone. The efforts help buttress her credentials as a potential Prime Ministerial candidate of the alliance in 2019.
But it would be premature to leap to any conclusions just yet. For one, there is a sharp contradiction between the constituents of any such front on leadership. Will the Congress accept Banerjee and vice versa? Will Ms Banerjee accept a Mayawati ? Will they be able to arrive at a common leader before polls — and, if not, would this faceless alliance be able to take on Narendra Modi? Two, there is no common narrative here. The TDP or the YSR Congress Party have Andhra Pradesh-specific concerns; the DMK or the TRS have interests specific to their states; the Shiv Sena, the leaders of which Ms Banerjee met, have far more in common ideologically with the BJP even now.
Besides, there are contradictions in each state among non-BJP parties . Can Ms Banerjee ally with the CPM, as well as the Congress, to take on the BJP in Bengal? All three want a common front in Delhi, but are battling each other in Kolkata. Unless leadership issues and contradictions on the ground are sorted out, Ms Banerjee’s efforts to forge a grand alliance may falter.